


Time's Relentless Melt

by Yeomanrand



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Not Beta Read, POV Male Character, Present Tense, Short, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:24:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q, during and after <i>Skyfall</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time's Relentless Melt

He doesn't expect to be made nominal head of Q-Branch for another fifteen to twenty years; nor actual head for another ten after that. The current Quartermaster is hale and enthusiastic about his job and new developments in technology. A mind well-worth picking, a character well-worth learning from.

One explosion changes everything.

The phoenix is reborn in fire; Q — like the rest of MI-6 — doesn't rise from the ashes so much as shake them off and return to work.

==

The double-ohs are his job, now. Bond is the first one he meets, and at a museum rather than the bunker serving as HQ. There's a sort of inevitability to their conversation, he thinks later; Bond is Bond, and Q is Q, and the world is different than one of them remembers and the other expects.

He returns to London Below, thinking about Bond, and Door, and expectations, and wondering which one of them was which.

==

The one thing his predecessor was clear about: Bond still has the Aston Martin. Profoundly flashy, and loaded with all the state-of-the-art gadgets of the time. Which means the car doesn't have a tracker installed.

Q watches M's car on the screen curiously to see where Bond has kept his little treasure. Anything but focus on the rookie mistake he'd made, too interested in impressing Bond by half.

Had to be Bond. He doesn't need to impress M, or Mallory, whose surprise appearance is more welcome than the sinking feeling in Q's stomach might suggest.

==

In a secret compartment of Q's desk, every Q's desk, are ten thin photo albums. Q, 2012, undoes the catch and pulls one out, then changes his mind and removes them all. He fans them out on the desk in front of him like a hand of cards, embossed numbers visible in part like particularly heavy ghosts on the covers.

Numbers, and two letters.

Q studies them, finally pulls the one labeled '007', and opens it to the first page. A single photograph, a dark-haired, dark-eyed man in a three-piece suit looking into the camera with a knowing smirk. In the top left corner, penciled-in dates; in the bottom right corner a 'D'. The second page, similar; dark eyes, dark hair. Younger, at the time the photograph was taken, than the first man. A bit older than Q himself. 

And again, a set of dates top left, a 'D*' at the bottom right. Held his double-oh for one year. Deceased due to failure of Q-branch equipment.

Four more pages, four more men, each with a set of dates and the indicative 'D' or 'D*'. Finally, a familiar face, close-cropped blonde hair. Not a hint of a smile on the thin lips, nor touching the blue eyes. 

Q studies the picture. Pulls out a rubber, then changes his mind; he has to hunt about a bit to find a pencil. Carefully, keeping his hand light, he adds 2012- beneath 2006-2012. He flips the pencil dexterously, taps the rubber at the lower corner. 

He flips the pencil again, and scores firmly through the 'D'.

**Author's Note:**

> _To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt. — Susan Sontag_


End file.
